Why I Hate Computers

(Last updated at on 10/5/09 at 10:51 PM. Jump to latest update.)
I just noticed that the “computing” category on WebPageless is just computer errors. This probably isn’t that interesting to anyone else, but I found that keeping track of PC errors and how I go about fixing them is helpful to me. Maybe someone Googling will find it useful too, or even better, maybe someone I know will be able to help me.
In a previous post I detailed how my computer was unable to play World of Warcraft. It would freeze while logging in after picking a character. Sadly, I never updated how I fixed it, and the problem is happening again.
More specifically, the problem never went away. Yeah, World of Warcraft would work, but when ever I rebooted, WoW would have the same problem. I could fix it by using System Restore to restore to a previous restore point. Not most recent restore point would not necessarily fix the problem. I would just keep restoring older and older restore points until the game worked. Unfortunately, none of the restore points I have fixed the problem after this last time.

 
Of course, this doesn’t really address the problem at all. What’s causing it? I don’t know. I do know, however, that a while ago I saw newer video drivers in Windows Update, but applying the update would cause this exact problem. How did I fix that? I used System Restore and never applied Windows Updates again. The strange thing is, despite disabling Automatic Windows Updates, I still see Windows Updates restore points in System Restore. Apparently, Windows Update is still running. I think what’s happening is that those video drivers, for what ever reason, are breaking World of Warcraft, and somehow they’re being applied every so often. Rebooting my computer allows them to finish installation. At least, this is my current theory.
Where do I stand now? I don’t really know. To be complete, let me talk about my computer here:

  • Windows Vista Business 64-bit, Service Pack 1, completely legal and verified
  • Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 @ 2.5 GHz
  • MSI P45 Neo-F mainboard
  • 4.00 GB of RAM
  • nVidia GeForce 8800 GT, drivers version 180.48 (7.15.0011.8048)
  • Rosewill 802.11b/g PCI

I bolded the most likely problem. After using the automatic scanning tool on nVidia’s site, they say my latest driver should be GeForce/ION Release 191, Version 191.07, from October 5, 2009. Hey, that’s today! I wonder if nVidia has got things together enough to make one that works now. I found an interesting article on engadget from March, 2008 saying that nearly 30% of Vista crashes were caused by nVidia in 2007, which makes it the most common cause. That is a rather old article as far as software is concerned, but assuming it’s accurate, does show that there have been problems with Vista and nVidia.
Update at 10/5/09, 2:48 PM
I played Team Fortress 2 for about 5 minutes, and there were no problems. I just made a restore point, so now I’ll update my nVidia drivers and see what happens.
Update at 10/5/09, 3:11 PM
I updated the nVidia drivers to 191.07. We’ll see how this goes!
Update at 10/5/09, 3:24 PM
World of Warcraft is working again! It looks like nVidia got some working drivers up finally!
Update at 10/5/09, 9:07 PM
After I found that World of Warcraft was working, I played for about an hour and then set a restore point in case anything went wrong in the future. A few hours later I rebooted, and now WoW has the same problem. I restored to that point that I had just made (that should have been working), and that didn’t fix it. I tried reinstalling the 191.07 drivers because it worked right after I installed those last time. Didn’t help. Now I’m going to restore the restore point I made this afternoon right before updating the drivers for the first time.
Update at 10/5/09, 10:51 PM
I restored that restore point, and WoW still crashed. I then installed the 191.07 drivers, and WoW still crashed. Now I’m going to try doing all the updates in Windows Update.
Last Update
Those updates fixed it! I’m still not rebooting after getting it working, because who knows how that’ll leave my computer. I’m glad Windows Update is finally fixing problems rather than causing problems.